Retrieving Bulge and Disk Parameters and Asymptotic Magnitudes from the Growth Curves of Galaxies

We show that the growth curves of galaxies can be used to determine their bulge and disk parameters and bulge-to-total luminosity ratios, in addition to their conventional asymptotic magnitudes, provided that the point spread function is accurately known and signal-to-noise ratio is modest (S/N$\gtrsim30$). The growth curve is a fundamental quantity that most future large galaxy imaging surveys will measure. Bulge and disk parameters retrieved from the growth curve will enable us to perform statistical studies of luminosity structure for a large number of galaxies.Comment: 28 pages including 13 PS figures; accepted for publication in PAS